4 ms·

It amazes me how many VCs or angel investors will put out all this information about what they want to see in a company or founder they invest in, but close to

It amazes me how many VCs or angel investors will put out all this information about what they want to see in a company or founder they invest in, but close to nothing about themselves on their website. “We have money to invest come and apply to us and we will determine if you are good enough.” Bro please. If we are building game changing AI before we take your money we want to know what you stand for. What are you made of. How do you want to shape the world. What’s your track record of dealing with small companies. What’s your philosophy around investor relations. Prove to me you’re not a complete dick to work for or to have on the board.

pnw 4y ago
There’s a pretty decent set of info and links to personal profiles on their website. If that’s not enough for a founder to do due diligence, they probably aren’t cut out for VC fundraising. And someone writing small checks like this is almost certainly not going to be on the board unless the founder is clueless.
- marc_rich 4y ago
  Not enough. This “apply to us” format should be deprecated. There’s a solo investor on twitter who says “DM me would love to chat if you’re building something.” And that’s much more approachable. She’s flooded with high quality founders and startups. People who run their own thing are looking for partners not a boss or anything that resembles one. This “fill up this form job/university application format so some alleged superior being judges you” is exactly what they ran away from. Speaking from experience.
  - pnw 4y ago
    What was your experience raising money, and how much did you raise?
FreakLegion 4y ago
There's a list of the people involved below the fold, but either way you wouldn't be working for them and they wouldn't be on your board.
suyash 4y ago
Yes, they offering seems to be quite weak than other renowned incubators like YC etc where you get more more support and possibly better funding deals.
version_five 4y ago
You have a fair point. It's interesting because I was literally just going through government programs that provide startup funding, where the application burden is high, the value is pretty low, and the format overall skews hard towards acting like the funding org has all the power and applicants should be thankful that someone deigned to review their application. It's actually similar to the job market. There is government, where only the most desperate, process oriented folks bother to go through the silly bureaucratic process, there's "traditional" application-interview-offer where the employer has the power, and there's a pull model for top people where they get hunted for jobs. The more power and brand you actually have, the more you can skew traditional / bureaucratic. If you're an unknown startup, you can't just post a job as and expect to get good candidates (I've tried that) - but you get a lot of mediocre ones. And if you're an unknown investor, I'd expect the same. These investors either have done similar enough things before that they have a sense of the candidates / companies they'll get and are cool with that level, or will learn this time about the volume and quality this kind of solicitation generates. ( Products, not papers. Tinkering, not training. Apps, not Arxiv Personly I think we're still at a stage where real research is important if you want ML to be an actual differentiator, and just e.g. cramming GPT into something is going to give you something very shallow, but let's see. I've been thinking about AI products a lot recently because I have an AI startup, and what I've concluded is that for AI to actually be a core differentiator and not a peripheral feature requires fundamental ML work specific to the product. But as I say, let's see what people can do)

pnw 4y ago

There’s a pretty decent set of info and links to personal profiles on their website. If that’s not enough for a founder to do due diligence, they probably aren’t cut out for VC fundraising. And someone writing small checks like this is almost certainly not going to be on the board unless the founder is clueless.

marc_rich 4y ago
Not enough. This “apply to us” format should be deprecated. There’s a solo investor on twitter who says “DM me would love to chat if you’re building something.” And that’s much more approachable. She’s flooded with high quality founders and startups. People who run their own thing are looking for partners not a boss or anything that resembles one. This “fill up this form job/university application format so some alleged superior being judges you” is exactly what they ran away from. Speaking from experience.
- pnw 4y ago
  What was your experience raising money, and how much did you raise?

FreakLegion 4y ago

There's a list of the people involved below the fold, but either way you wouldn't be working for them and they wouldn't be on your board.

suyash 4y ago

Yes, they offering seems to be quite weak than other renowned incubators like YC etc where you get more more support and possibly better funding deals.

version_five 4y ago

You have a fair point. It's interesting because I was literally just going through government programs that provide startup funding, where the application burden is high, the value is pretty low, and the format overall skews hard towards acting like the funding org has all the power and applicants should be thankful that someone deigned to review their application. It's actually similar to the job market. There is government, where only the most desperate, process oriented folks bother to go through the silly bureaucratic process, there's "traditional" application-interview-offer where the employer has the power, and there's a pull model for top people where they get hunted for jobs. The more power and brand you actually have, the more you can skew traditional / bureaucratic. If you're an unknown startup, you can't just post a job as and expect to get good candidates (I've tried that) - but you get a lot of mediocre ones. And if you're an unknown investor, I'd expect the same. These investors either have done similar enough things before that they have a sense of the candidates / companies they'll get and are cool with that level, or will learn this time about the volume and quality this kind of solicitation generates. ( Products, not papers. Tinkering, not training. Apps, not Arxiv Personly I think we're still at a stage where real research is important if you want ML to be an actual differentiator, and just e.g. cramming GPT into something is going to give you something very shallow, but let's see. I've been thinking about AI products a lot recently because I have an AI startup, and what I've concluded is that for AI to actually be a core differentiator and not a peripheral feature requires fundamental ML work specific to the product. But as I say, let's see what people can do)